You're 100% correct, but no one can understand that

[Georgie_Leech]

I often argue with my sister about stuff like this, but I've given up recently because when presented with the evidence she will just walk out of the room (And she's taking philoophy, a subject based around discussion. Hmm)

Most of the time I will never assert that I am one hundred percent correct though, because I don't really believe in facts and 'truth.' I have never been presented with something I couldn't find a clever way to argue against, not needing to resort to a 'I'm rght and that's that' argument. Mostly I feel it needs to be pointed out that what was believed years ago is not necessarily fact, despite being supported by the majority of the evidence of the time. The same will happen to things we hold fundamental to our beliefs today.

I disagree. A common element of our cultural and scientific development has changed. Hundreds of years ago, superstition such as Spontaneous Generation and Flat Earth were widely held beliefs. These were the ideas that were proven false.

Actually, at the time Flat Earth was a scientifically valid idea. There was no data to suggest otherwise.

There was a ton of data, enough that Columbus was quite happy sailing west to get to eastern China.

 

[botobeno]

Actually, at the time Flat Earth was a scientifically valid idea. There was no data to suggest otherwise.

As the other person already pointed out, the Greeks already knew it was round (and they even had a a quite good estimate of the size.)

The data that shows it's round is how a ship appears at the horizon. First you see the top of the mast, then the sail appears, then the hull. If the earth was flat, you would see the entire ship as a tiny dot that gradually becomes larger.

That's how it was told to me. I never did the research to confirm it though. Never watched a ship appear at the horizon either. Still, i'm quite sure it's true.

Edit: Columbus going west says nothing about the earth being round or not, what it does say is that there were at least some people who thought it was round at the time.

 

[Redingold]

I had a big argument trying to explain to someone that velocities are relative. He simply couldn't grasp the idea.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Probably similar ones to Richard Dawkins'. "The Greatest Show on Earth" was a great book.

I found it terrible. Almost like it was an attempt to "religionise" evolution, which is half the problem with a whole slew of popular books on evolution. They don't treat it as a science but more as some kind of... philosophy.

A much better book on evolution, for my money, would be The Velvet Claw by David Macdonald, which deals with the Carnivores, or the sublime Evolution of the Insects by David Grimaldi & Michael S. Engel, which obviously deals with insects. These books are superior by virtue of the fact they deal with real animals and how those animals came to be the way they are. They don't ***** about with taxonomy, theology, intelligent designers, proofs or anything else. This is just purely - this is what cats were like, this is how they changed, this is why they changed, this is what happened to them.

Trying to explain to an idiot I work with that a plane on a conveyor belt will indeed take off.

Mythbusters made it happen, and it made perfect sense.. since a plane dont use its wheel for propulsion.

Mythbusters are an entertainment outfit, not a fountain of eternal wisdom.

Actually, at the time Flat Earth was a scientifically valid idea. There was no data to suggest otherwise.

Exactly. Sitting about complaining about people thinking the earth was flat when they had no evidence to suggest otherwise is a bit like complaining that people think the earth is spherical today.

 

[LOLSUP]

I had one of incidents recently.
The long and the short of it was me and a bunch of friends were in a restaurant. The waiter refused to give us tap water because the water supply's had been cut off. Fair enough. A discussion ensued to if a customer is obliged to free tap water and if the restaurant is IN LEGAL OBLIGATION to provide it.

I might add I was with 3 girls and being the only guy there KNOWING THE TRUTH (as if it mattered) I decided to tell them they were in fact, wrong. A restaurant does not legally have to provide FREE tap water (and is allowed to charge for it).
My sane argument was that (arguably) there is a degree of service involved providing clean glasses, the jug, and serving the customer. They argued and argued until I said "OK, well you have an iphone, look it up".
According to them shortly after the results were revealed it wasn't important who was right or wrong anymore, I was just being a dick.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

Probably similar ones to Richard Dawkins'. "The Greatest Show on Earth" was a great book.

I found it terrible. Almost like it was an attempt to "religionise" evolution, which is half the problem with a whole slew of popular books on evolution. They don't treat it as a science but more as some kind of... philosophy.

A much better book on evolution, for my money, would be The Velvet Claw by David Macdonald, which deals with the Carnivores, or the sublime Evolution of the Insects by David Grimaldi & Michael S. Engel, which obviously deals with insects. These books are superior by virtue of the fact they deal with real animals and how those animals came to be the way they are. They don't ***** about with taxonomy, theology, intelligent designers, proofs or anything else. This is just purely - this is what cats were like, this is how they changed, this is why they changed, this is what happened to them.

As he makes quite clear in the preface, that's not what the book is about. He's written others on the subject; this was specifically FOR the evidence of evolution.

 

[cuddly_tomato]

Probably similar ones to Richard Dawkins'. "The Greatest Show on Earth" was a great book.

I found it terrible. Almost like it was an attempt to "religionise" evolution, which is half the problem with a whole slew of popular books on evolution. They don't treat it as a science but more as some kind of... philosophy.

A much better book on evolution, for my money, would be The Velvet Claw by David Macdonald, which deals with the Carnivores, or the sublime Evolution of the Insects by David Grimaldi & Michael S. Engel, which obviously deals with insects. These books are superior by virtue of the fact they deal with real animals and how those animals came to be the way they are. They don't ***** about with taxonomy, theology, intelligent designers, proofs or anything else. This is just purely - this is what cats were like, this is how they changed, this is why they changed, this is what happened to them.

As he makes quite clear in the preface, that's not what the book is about. He's written others on the subject; this was specifically FOR the evidence of evolution.

Precisely. Who the hell needs the evidence for evolution (bold is a better way of emphasis)? If someone is reading about evolution, they probably want to learn about it. If someone doesn't believe it by now, that's fair enough but they sure as shit ain't going to be convinced by Dawkins. So in my opinion, it is not a good book, as it's target audience is de minimous, so to speak. I mean, be honest, did it convince you of anything you didn't already believe before you read it? And did it really impart any knowledge that improved your understanding of how the world works?

I offer a précis of The Velvet Claw [http://www.bobpickett.org/velvet_claw.htm] for your perusal. If you enjoy natural history I think you will like what you see.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

Probably similar ones to Richard Dawkins'. "The Greatest Show on Earth" was a great book.

I found it terrible. Almost like it was an attempt to "religionise" evolution, which is half the problem with a whole slew of popular books on evolution. They don't treat it as a science but more as some kind of... philosophy.

A much better book on evolution, for my money, would be The Velvet Claw by David Macdonald, which deals with the Carnivores, or the sublime Evolution of the Insects by David Grimaldi & Michael S. Engel, which obviously deals with insects. These books are superior by virtue of the fact they deal with real animals and how those animals came to be the way they are. They don't ***** about with taxonomy, theology, intelligent designers, proofs or anything else. This is just purely - this is what cats were like, this is how they changed, this is why they changed, this is what happened to them.

As he makes quite clear in the preface, that's not what the book is about. He's written others on the subject; this was specifically FOR the evidence of evolution.

Precisely. Who the hell needs the evidence for evolution (bold is a better way of emphasis)? If someone is reading about evolution, they probably want to learn about it. If someone doesn't believe it by now, that's fair enough but they sure as shit ain't going to be convinced by Dawkins. So in my opinion, it is not a good book, as it's target audience is de minimous, so to speak. I mean, be honest, did it convince you of anything you didn't already believe before you read it? And did it really impart any knowledge that improved your understanding of how the world works?

I offer a précis of The Velvet Claw [http://www.bobpickett.org/velvet_claw.htm] for your perusal. If you enjoy natural history I think you will like what you see.

Did I believe in Evolution before? Yes. But it did, in fact, teach me new things about the world in that it discuses many of the experiments about evolution.

 

[DigitalSushi]

Evolution. It's a Theory the same way that Gravity is a theory. Not that this is a common misunderstanding or anything, but die-hard, literal creationalists bug me.

It depends. Evolution by natural selection is a proven fact, but people have trouble with it on a larger scale.

Creationist use this as a wedge tool to create discussion on the internet to further their goals, because natural selection doesn't have a model for a genome changing from one phyla to a different taxonomy they use it as a "but but but how does a flower become a dog" arguement.

But no model or theory whether creationist or not have the confirmed arguement for phyla changing.

*sigh* Not again...
Evolution does NOT imply that flowers turn into dogs or something like that. It implies that dogs and flowers had a common ancestor a LONG time ago.

*pukes*

Thanks for repeating what I just said.

 

[Burningsok]

And going back to your bullet hitting a helmet thing. A lot of the opposite force of a bullet it released in sound and light from the muzzle flash, not all of it goes into the kick back. So your friend was indeed wrong.

Thanks, I was too obsessed with the F=MA equation that I didn't think of that as well.

Wow I'd never heard of Brownian motion, but skimming the wiki entry, I realised that I never wondered how such an everyday occurrence worked.

Evolution. It's a Theory the same way that Gravity is a theory.

We had a university lecturer who gave as a 50min presentation on how he proved/supported evolution by 11 completely independent points (can't exactly remember, there was the fossil record and how we breed domestic animals). I wished I'd gotten a copy of his slides. That said all the very religous people, not many like 3 or 4, walked out at the start.

Plz don't continue on from this... no need for a flame war, but I think they would be more respected if they would just sit there and listing to the guy supporting evolution, and then explain to all the evolution believers why evolution is wrong. Walking out of it just proves they are arrogant, and that they are ignorant of the whole theory. I would like to see them explain to the class and the guy explaining evolution why they think it's wrong

 

[Zorg Machine]

I tried explaining to a girl that when you count the months after march you don't actually count march. She gave me a blank stare and counted the months again...starting with march...she was 2 years older than me (I was 14 she was 16)

 

[Dark Knifer]

I once had an argument that the sun was a star... I so wish I was joking...

 

[AkJay]

This is a REAL argument I had with someone. I swear to your God that I wish I was lying:

(I live on the North-East Coast of the U.S.A)

Girl: "The Moon is closer to us than Florida"
Me: "No it isn't"
Girl: "Yes it is! I can see the Moon, it's there, and I cannot see Florida, so it's simple logic that the Moon is closer."
Me in the middle of face-palming: "The Moon is thousands of miles away, Florida is in our country, We can drive to Florida in a few hours or one day at the most. It took a spaceship with rocket propulsion 3 days, and trust me, those rockets are going a lot faster than 65 MPH."
Girl: "Whatever, you're full of shit."

EDIT: Another argument I just remembered.

Guy : "Where is the other side of the map?"
Me : "The map is flat, there is no other side."
Guy : "You're joking? right? The world is a sphere, any idiot knows that. So if the map is one side, where is the other side?"

 

[Riyka]

all the arguments here are actually like intelligent ones....
i get stuck with the dipshit at work who argues the following points with me

Prague is the capital of Romania
Octupus are fish (and following that, all things in the sea are fish)
JKRowling wrote Lord of the rings (honestly...i couldn't talk for several hours after that ignorant piece of crap came out of his mouth)
the list is actually endless...

my boss keeps saying 'wherefore art thou *insert name here*' i've explained several times that is not what that sentance means...but to no avail...she gets even more confused when i answer the question correctly XD

i used to have 'philosphical' arguments with my nan all the time...she is even worse than me when it come to being right XD so they never ended well...plus she was christian...and i'm not..which lead to a lot of fights XD

 

[Cargando]

That [i/]Physalia Physalis[/i] is not a jellyfish.

Spoiler: If you wondering, it looks like this:

[img/]http://pamiejane.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/portuguese-man-o-war.jpg[/img]
There, the Portugese Man O' War.

I do believe it's a bunch of parasites held together with hatred and the tears of small children.

I'm not a maths-sy person, but a friend taught me how to use algebra to prove that 1=2. I'll edit the post to include it later, but no-one would be believe me. Even when I wrote the proof down.

Thank you, I knew someone else must know about it, but everyone around here just gives me funny looks.

 

[Outright Villainy]

I had a big argument trying to explain to someone that velocities are relative. He simply couldn't grasp the idea.

Well, I've done a course on special relativity, and it's not really explained at all WHY light is the same in all reference frames, which as you'd know is the entire foundation of relativistic velocities and times. It's been demonstratably proven of course, I'm just pointing out that it is pretty counter-intuitive.

Silly light, It's always confusing us! (acting as both a wave and a particle and whatnot...)

 

[Red Right Hand]

We were showed that one Monty Hall problem in school. And I didn't get it. Why the fuck would you switch door, the only door you know anything about is the opened one with a goat, how does that have anything to do with your knowledge of the others, the odds are 50/50 after they were 1/3!

See thats what I think, but I just cannot see why you even take the already opened door into question. You can't switch to that so that just leaves you with two doors which you know nothing about. Therefore the odds must be a 1/2 as you only have two doors, meaning only two options.

EDIT: Awww, now I get it!

We were showed that one Monty Hall problem. And I didn't get it. Why the fuck would you switch door, the only door you know anything about is the opened one with a goat, how does that have anything to do with your knowledge of the others, the odds are 50/50 after they were 1/3!

I'll try to explain this simply (the picture in the OP helps)

When you first pick a door, the odds of getting the car are 1 out of 3, so the odds are essentialy 2/3 that you have picked a goat at the start.

Then he opens one door and eliminates a goat, this means either the one you have chosen has the car or the last remaining door. But we already know that you're most likely sitting on a goat (2/3), which means it's most likely the car is in the other door. By switching you change the more to likely option (2/3).

If it helps imagine the scenario with 100 doors, one with a car, 99 with goats. You pick one its most likely a goat, then he eliminates 98 goats, leaving the last remaining door to be most likely a goat. It's unlikely to get the car on the first guess,

Cheers man that finally helped me understand this cruel maths puzzle. Been tormenting me for years in maths.

 

[Georgie_Leech]

We were showed that one Monty Hall problem in school. And I didn't get it. Why the fuck would you switch door, the only door you know anything about is the opened one with a goat, how does that have anything to do with your knowledge of the others, the odds are 50/50 after they were 1/3!

See thats what I think, but I just cannot see why you even take the already opened door into question. You can't switch to that so that just leaves you with two doors which you know nothing about. Therefore the odds must be a 1/2 as you only have two doors, meaning only two options.

When you guess which door has a car, you had a 2/3 chance of choosing wrong. thay one of the doors that you didn't choose was opened, it doesn't magically change the probability that you were wrong. The chance that the car was in one of the two doors was 2/3, and now one of those doors is gone, so the chance that it was behind the closed door that you didn't pick is still 2/3. The only way it would revert to 50/50 odds is if you were turned around and they switched the objects around a few times behind the doors.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Trying to explain to an idiot I work with that a plane on a conveyor belt will indeed take off.

Mythbusters made it happen, and it made perfect sense.. since a plane dont use its wheel for propulsion.

The trouble is, Mythbusters did not replicate the QUESTION being asked. They demonstrated, as close as they could with their budget at least, what would happen in reality. The trouble is, the question has nothing to do with reality as the question essentially boils down to "What happens when you try to move an immovable object". The core question has no basis in reality and thus why it makes an excellent paradox. Of course, I enjoyed that episode as much as any other if only for the fact that they took an an absurd question and demonstrated what would happen if you came as close as possible to the myth as reality allows.

I think the most recent example of a such a problem came from this very forum with a resurgence of the .999... = 1 issue. For those who are unaware, .999 as an infinite series is indeed equal to one but people often reject the problem outright. There are dozens of proofs that demonstrate why this is true and yet people assume some sort of math mistake has been made. To be fair, the OP in this case did indeed make a critcal error in that .99999 does not indicate an infinite series unless you specify it does, either by adding an elipses at the end, writing it in series notation or use any other approved math notation.